Broken Reality
by Luna'sCaptain
Summary: A story written by Lasthero13 on deviantART, about the second generation of Lyoko warriors and their struggle to save the world while retaining their humanity.
1. Chapter 1

**Allow me to explain. The lovely Lasthero13 of deviantART offered to illustrate my Star Wars fanfiction, so I told her that if she ever needed a favor or six, she should come to me. Hero asked me to upload her Code Lyoko fanfiction to my account so that more people would see it. I agreed, mostly because it's well-written and engages the reader. Please direct all praise and criticism to Hero—here's a URL for the first chapter in its original location: ** gallery/35038497#/d4o1n0u

**-*!*-**

A loud knocking startled Aurora Ishiyama out of her music-induced trance.

Her eyes fluttered open, and for a moment, she was content just to listen to the current song pounding in her headphones. Reluctantly, she sat up when the knocking continued, abandoning all hope of returning anytime soon to the half-awake, half-asleep state that she had attained.

She pulled the headphones off of her ears and switched them off just in time to hear her Aunt Kana call, "I'll get it," and walk towards the door. Not that she had to go very far; the apartment was depressingly small.

"Hello?"

Aurora stood up.

"Mrs. Ishiyama, we're here to speak with your niece."

She blinked, surprised. The voice was gruff, male, and spoke Japanese awkwardly, with some sort of European accent. She couldn't imagine why anyone like that would want to talk with her.

Deciding that she had better go take a look, Aurora slid open the door. She didn't even have to move from where she was standing on top of her sleeping mat to do it.

Haruka, her younger cousin, poked her head out of the tent that she had made out of blankets. The sides were bulging; Aurora wondered idly how many dolls she had in there.

"What's going on?" she asked. Her dark hair was pulled into a pair of messy pigtails, as per usual.

"I don't know," Aurora answered, stepping into the hall. She noticed that one of her other cousins, Takamoto, was leaning out of the room that he shared with Haruka's twin brother. He ran his fingers through his short hair and shot her a glare, which she ignored. Their enmity was hardly news anymore.

"Why would anyone want to talk to _you_?" he hissed. Aurora shook her head. She was just as curious as he was.

With a glance towards the front room, he mouthed "Good luck" at her with a sarcastic smile, then pulled a curious Daisuke (his younger brother) back into the room as he closed the door.

Taking a deep breath, Aurora walked down the hall.

There were two men, squeezed uncomfortably into the small front room with Aunt Kana. They looked European, and both wore suits and sunglasses, even though it was dark outside.

"Aurora Ishiyama?" one asked. Aurora nodded, suddenly aware that she was wearing shorts, an overlarge T-shirt, and little else.

"You're the daughter of the late Yumi Ishiyama and William Dunbar, right?" the second man added.

She just looked at him. It hurt to hear them call her mother "late." Yes, she was missing...but no hard evidence pointing to her death had ever been found. So there was a definite chance that she was still alive. Even after fourteen years.

"I'll take that as a yes." The man turned to Aunt Kana. "Mrs. Ishiyama, I'm afraid your niece will have to come with us."

"What? Why?" Aunt Kana exclaimed. She sounded as shocked as Aurora felt. "She hasn't done anything wrong, has she?"

She tossed an accusatory glace at her niece, as if suspecting that she broke the law regularly in her spare time.

"No, she hasn't," he replied. "Please, ma'am, don't make this any more difficult than it has to be."

"You can't just take a fourteen-year-old girl with no warning, that's illegal! It's called kidnapping. Just wait until my husband gets home, he'll-"

"Mrs. Ishiyama, we are with a division of the French armed forces known as A.R.O.D.S.," the man said, pronouncing it "Air-odds" and flashing a badge as he switched effortlessly into French. Evidently, his knowledge of Japanese only went so far. "We have permission from your government to take Aurora Ishiyama through any means necessary. Including, but not limited to, force."

His partner had produced a very thin holoscreen, presumably with some sort of pardon from the prime minister on it, and handed it to Aunt Kana. She scanned it rapidly, then looked up at the two men, white-faced. They nodded in unison.

"This..." she whispered, "this...can't be true...you found a-Yumi was-"

"I'm sorry, you don't have clearance to discuss that outside of the confines of a limited number of buildings," the man said, taking the screen back. "Now, if you don't mind, we are on a _very_ tight schedule."

Aunt Kana swallowed hard several times, trying to come to terms with whatever she had read. Meanwhile, Aurora's imagination went wild.

They had found something. What? And what did her mother have to do with it? It had to be important, for the government to authorize them virtually kidnapping her. Maybe it was some sort of weapon, built by an international terrorist organization, and it could only be activated by Yumi's DNA, and Aurora was genetically similar to her...no. Maybe Yumi was a spy, and they wanted to train her to take her mother's place. No, that wasn't it either. Her mind rapidly clicked through a variety of possibilities, each more unlikely than the previous one.

The case had opened back up? Her dad had risen from the dead as a vampire? Aliens?

As she was considering the possibility that she might not be entirely human, Aunt Kana spoke.

"Aurora, go get your things," she said, her voice unusually high and her eyes still fixed on the men.

Snapping out of her creative trance, Aurora realized that she was probably expected to protest here, say something about how there was no way that she would leave with two complete strangers, but oddly enough, her body seemed to be moving on its own, back to her room, where she started packing.

She didn't take much. Her clothes, her art supplies, her antique fans from the feudal period, which she couldn't bear to leave behind. Her music, of course. A rather blurry picture in a dented frame, of a man and a woman holding a baby.

Aurora also changed into a more practical outfit-a button-down sleeveless shit with a tie, a skirt, and boots. She was aware of Haruka's eyes on her the whole time.

"Aurora, where are they taking you?" the little girl burst out, crawling out of her makeshift tent. When her cousin only wordlessly shook her head, she burst into tears and flung herself into her arms.

As she held Haruka close and whispered for her to be strong, Aurora's eyes strayed around the room. One half covered in posters and drawing, the other holding her cousin's shelves of stuffed animals. It wasn't a room, really. More like a closet. Their sleeping mats were right next to each other, and Haruka had a habit of kicking. Which, now that she was about to leave her, seemed like much more of an endearment than an annoyance.

When the younger girls sobs had become hiccups, Aurora gave her one last squeeze and stood up. Haruka told her that she would miss her, but she could only nod in return. She felt strangely numb all over, and unable to speak. Unable to really think, even. Her mind felt like she was dreaming. Yes, that's what this was. A dream. She had fallen asleep while listening to her music, and now she was dreaming.

_What would a secret division of the French military want with me, anyway?_

Haruka was holding a stuffed animal out and saying something with a watery smile, but Aurora ignored her. It was just a dream. Picking up the suitcase and backpack that she had managed to fill, she walked back out into the hall.

Aunt Kana had been talking to the men in a low voice (something about a "unique genetic sequence" and "for the good of mankind"-Aurora was surprised at the scope of her imagination), but she fell silent when her niece approached. She no longer looked quite as shell-shocked, which Aurora supposed was a good thing, but she didn't really care. It was just a dream.

Her aunt hugged her tightly and whispered, "Good luck, Aurora-chan," then let go of her. The next thing she knew, she was in the dark hallway outside standing between the two men. Maybe she should have been upset that the woman who had raised her was resigned to her leaving with a couple of strangers, but it didn't matter. It was just a dream.

Outside, she decided the push the limits of this world that she had created in her subconscious.

"Where are you taking me?" Aurora asked in French. She had taken the language at school, along with English, and had evidently brought it with her into the depths of her sleeping mind.

One of her escort glanced at her, the numerous lights of the city reflecting off of his dark glasses. She had the strangest feeling that if she were to reach up and pull them off of his face, there wouldn't be anything behind them.

"Would you believe me if I told you that you're going to save the world?" the man asked.

She suppressed a laugh, because she was sure that it would come out far more hysterical than she wanted it to. Which annoyed her. This was nothing but a dream.

"No."

"I didn't think so. Come on."

Following the two men through a startlingly realistic Tokyo, Aurora realized that she was scared of these men. No, more than that. Terrified. The feelings that they invoked in her...horror, impending doom, and some other third thing that screamed at her to run in the other direction because she was a girl in a story, being taken to a monster in order to satisfy its hunger. But she shook it off.

It was just a dream.


	2. Chapter 2

** The second chapter of Broken Reality, written by Lasthero13 on deviantART. The characters, writing, and storyline belong to her, not me, and yes, I have permission to upload it. Code Lyoko belongs to MoonScoop.**

-*!*-

"Hey, give those back, you little brat!"

Jessica Della Robbia leapt backwards as one of the men who had escorted her here from California grabbed for her. Holding the sunglasses that she had pulled off of his face out of reach, she did a sort of agile little dance around him.

"Oh, so you do have eyes," Jessie observed. He did, actually-blue ones that were currently narrowed in anger. This was just the latest in a series of events to make him hate the tiny blond that he had brought to France.

The first was an exhaustive game of hide-and-seek that she had forced them to play, by successfully foiling their efforts to find her for almost an hour. They had missed both their flight as a result. Her grandparents had been less than helpful; not even a signed letter from the president could make them happy about giving up their granddaughter.

The second was the incident in the airport, where Jessie had very nearly gotten her escort arrested by hiding in the women's bathroom and refusing to come out for anything. A large man dragging a teenager out of a restroom that clearly didn't match his gender had aroused the attention of the TSA for some reason, and they were detained until a call to the White House itself had verified that they were who they said they were. Well, except for Jessie, who had claimed to be a dead pop star named Lady GaGa.

Once in the air, Jessie's choices of mischief had been rather limited. There wasn't much she could do without being accused of trying to blow up the plane. So she just kept up a constant stream of inane chatter-something that she was disturbingly good at.

Now, she put the sunglasses on and rapidly stumbled around to avoid capture, her arms held out in front of her. "Whoa, how do you _see _with these on? It's so dark..."

The man whose glasses she had stolen managed to a hold of one of her purple-streaked pigtails, snatching his property off of her face. He relocated his grip to her upper arm, and sensing that it wouldn't be a good idea to struggle at the moment, she contented herself with looking around the town. It had an old, quaint feel; most of the buildings looked like they were over eighty years old. It was the sort of place that you would expect to find writers, academics, and undercover superheroes.

"So where's this headquarters of yours, anyway?" Jessie asked.

"Right there," one of the men said wearily, pointing to a rather ugly building on an island in the river. It was relatively low to the ground, had very small windows, and was painted a hideous green color. What looked like snipers paced back and forth on the roof.

"That used to be an old factory," he continued conversationally, adjusting his glasses. "When it fell down, we built our headquarters there."

"Who designed it?" Jessie asked. "Godzilla?"

"Just go."

For once, she did as she was told, walking across the bridge and into the building. Her escort never left her side, directing her through countless white corridors. Finally, they stopped by an unmarked door, which one of them pushed open.  
"Go inside and change," he said. Jessie peered into the room, which resembled a dressing chamber at a hospital. On one wall, a cabinet for personal belongings. On another, a bench to sit down on.

And on the third, a tiny set of olive-green armor in a glass case.

When Jessie made no move to enter the room, one of the men sighed impatiently and prodded her.

"What's wrong now?"

"I think I'm a little old for this," she replied, glancing at him. From the expression on this face, she could tell that he definitely hadn't been expecting that.

"What?"

"Well, you're supposed to take us at six. Then eight years of rigorous military training, then augmentations at fourteen, then-"

"What are you talking about?" the man snapped.

"Well, making child super-soldiers, obviously!" she snapped back. "That is what you're doing here, right?"

"What? No, we-"

"Man, I can't _wait_ to start fighting Covenant," Jessie was saying, executing what she imagined to be karate moves. "Wait, it _is_the Covenant, right? Or are we just at war with another country? 'Cause personally, I'd rather fight aliens-"

"I told you, we're not-"

"Can I make a request on my number?" she asked. "Huh? Can I? 'Cause I'd like to be Jessie-117-"

_"We are not making super-soldiers here!" the man finally roared. "Get in there!" _

He shoved her into the changing room, then slammed the door. On the other side, she could hear him cursing her in French. Shrugging, she turned to the armor.

It didn't take her long to figure out how to get into it. It fit perfectly, and was surprisingly light and thin. She guessed that it was designed for movement and flexibility, rather than any heavy-duty protection.

"Great. Now you need a haircut," one of her escort muttered when she opened the door. Jessie clutched her pigtails in horror.

"A haircut?" she exclaimed. "No way! Do you have any idea how long it took for me to grow it out?"

"Your helmet won't fit otherwise," he pointed out, though there had been no helmet in with the armor. She folded her arms across her chest.

"No."

The men glanced at each other.

It took another twenty minutes to drag Jessie all the way to the other end of the building, where the barber was. It was only several very graphic threats that kept her in the chair as her pigtails were lopped off.

"These streaks are natural?" the barber asked as he worked.

"Yes."

"So one of parents was purple and one was blond?"

"No, my mom's a redhead. My dad's hair was the same as mine."

She had seen pictures of her dad, Theodore "Odd" Della Robbia, even though she had been raised by her mother's parents. They had approved of him, thought that he might straighten out their daughter. Unfortunately, he had disappeared shortly after Jessie's birth. Her aunts all told her that she looked exactly like him, for which she wasn't exactly grateful. She couldn't walk down the street without one of the Odd's fans staring at her.

At least in California. Maybe it'd be different here.

"Alright, let's go," one of the men (the one that always spoke, she noticed) said once her hair was short enough to be pinned up inside a helmet. "Time to meet the others."

She pounced on this tiny piece of information like a cat on a mouse.

"Others? There are others?"

"Yes," he replied warily. "Three. Come on."

They led her deeper into the building. As they went, they passed quite a few soldiers. Jessie noticed that they were wearing armor similar to hers. And that it was devoid of any markings, such as the French flag or even the European Union one. Weird.

Finally, they came to a stop in front of a door that, to her, looked exactly the same as the hundred others that they had passed.

"Well, this is it," the man that always talked said. He opened the door and ushered her in. She couldn't really blame him for being glad to see her go.

Jessie turned her attention to the room that she was now in. It was Spartan in its simplicity, white and featureless except for the three heavy metal chairs in a row. Two were occupied.

There was an Asian-looking girl with crimson hair. The armor that she was wearing looked right on her somehow, and she had the permanently insecure vibe of someone who wasn't entirely comfortable with their own species.

There was also a tall boy, with spiky brown hair that reminded her of something out of a Japanese cartoon. He was tan from being outdoors, and even though everything but his head was covered, she guessed that he was an athlete.

"Do you know why they brought us here?" the boy asked in French. Jessie had taken classes in the language, but never really used it, so she was surprised at how well she understood it.

"No," she replied. The Asian girl sighed.

"We didn't think so."


	3. Chapter 3

** All characters, writing, and storyline belong to Lasthero13, not me, I have permission to upload, in fact she asked me to, if you don't know this by now, why are you reading it?**

-*!*-

_Tap-tap-tap..._

Skyler Stern gritted his teeth and examined his gauntlets. An entire hour and a half...who jiggled their leg up and down for an hour and a half?

He glanced at Aurora, the quiet Asian girl with the red hair, hoping that maybe she was as annoyed as he was. But no. Her eyes were closed. Was she asleep?

_Tap-tap-tap..._

The football player shook his head in disbelief. He had learned that she was from Tokyo, from the brief-but-awkward conversation that they'd had before the third member of their party had shown up. She was probably used to sleeping through irritating noises. But seriously. Who on earth could tolerate the rapid tapping of the blond's heel against the floor enough to take a nap? His eye twitched involuntarily.

_Tap-tap-tap..._

"Hey." The source of his intense annoyance spoke up, breaking the relative silence of the room. Skyler glanced at her. "Am I bothering you?"

She spoke French surprising well, though her obvious American accent and high-pitched voice made her difficult to understand. He forced a smile and hoped that it hid his murderous rage.

"Just...just a little," he told her.

"Oh. Sorry." Her leg kept moving. "What's your name again?"

"Skyler Stern."

"I'm Jessie Della Robbia." _Tap-tap-tap._ "So, you from arou-"

"Yes, I live in the town. I've been here since yesterday. They came and got me in the middle of a football game." Skyler's voice was tense. He resisted the urge to reach over and hold Jessie's leg still.

"You play football?"

"Soccer to you."

"Oh."

_Tap-tap-tap._

"There's something really weird going on here," she continued. "What do you think it is? I mean, there's soldiers all over the place and we were basically kidnapped and stuff. I bet they're gonna have us fight aliens."

"Mm-hm." Unfortunately, they hadn't been given helmets or he would have put his on already to muffle the sound.

_Tap-tap-tap._

"So, what do you think?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, come on. You must have a theory."

"Actually, I don't."

"Do you have _any_ imagination?"

"Nope."

There was a sudden screeching noise as Jessie dragged her chair over to his. She reached out and tugged at his hair. Skyler jerked away, more than a little disturbed.

"What the heck are you doing?"

"Your hair's so weird," she explained. "It's like something out of an anime."

"Yep. We all have weird hair," he muttered, roughly shoving her hands away from his head. "That must be why they took us."

She suddenly stopped playing with his hair and stared at him with wide eyes. "Oh my gosh. I bet you're right."

Before he could reply, the door that they had come in through opened. Three people entered. A woman with short black hair in military armor, a bearded man wearing a lab coat, and a green-haired girl also wearing armor. Aurora opened her eyes and Jessie scooted away from Skyler.

The black-haired woman stood in front of them, her arms folded behind her back. She surveyed them with a steely gaze. Skyler had the feeling that he was being inspected-and that he was failing. A chill ran down his spine.

Finally, she spoke. Though he would soon come to wish that she had just kept her mouth shut.

"Aurora Ishiyama, Skyler Stern, Jessica Della Robbia," she said, nodding to each of them in turn. "You're probably wondering what you're doing here."

"Yeah, kinda," Jessie called in English. The soldier's eyes snapped to her.

"Della Robbia, you are now part of a military unit," she barked. "I expect you to act like it."

Jessie looked like she had been slapped. Skyler felt kind of bad for her. That is, until she stood up, hands on her hips, and started talking back.

"Oh, so we're soldiers now?" she asked. "We're minors. I don't know about here, but in America, I'm not allowed to enlist in the army-"

"I'm well aware of your age," the woman said stiffly. "But this is a special situation. You alone are qualified to-"

"To _what_? Huh? I'm pretty sure that the only thing I can do better than French soldiers is play _Halo_. and sing, probably. And draw. And play guit-"

"Jessie, sit down and shut up," Skyler muttered. He wasn't all that familiar with the military. But he did know that you either followed orders or paid for it.

She folded her arms across her chest and glared at the armored woman for a few seconds, but didn't say anything else. To his shock, she sat down and crossed her legs.

The soldier took a deep breath and let it out very slowly. "I'll let that go, because it's your first day and you don't know the rules."

Jessie opened her mouth, but Skyler placed a heavy hand on her shoulder and shook his head.

"Like I said, you are now part of a military unit," she continued, nodding at him approvingly. "You four will learn to fight together. You will support each other. You will become a family."

_Four?_ He glanced at the girl with the green hair, who was studying her boots. _She must be one of us._

Aurora raised her hand, almost timidly.

"Ma'am, we're fourteen and we have no combat experience," she stated in a soft voice. "What exactly will we be fighting?"

The woman studied her. As if deciding just how much she should reveal.

"A malevolent AI, in an alternate universe contained within a computer," she finally said. "It frequently tries to attack our world and must be defeated manually."

There was complete silence in the room. Then Jessie climbed on top of her chair and began examining the ceiling.

"Della Robbia, what are you doing?"

"Looking for the hidden cameras," she replied.

"This is some sort of joke, isn't it?" Skyler asked, standing up. "Ha ha, it was funny and elaborate and I'm sure some TV station will pay a lot of money for the footage. Can I go home now?"

"Unfortunately, Stern, this is all too real," the soldier frowned. He stared her down calmly, a flicker of fear worming its way into his heart. "The fate of our planet rests with you."


	4. Chapter 4

**Written by Lasthero13 on deviantART (more recently known as The Thirteenth Hero on this website). I make no claim at all to owning this story.**

-*!*-

"You have unique genetic sequences," Commander Dubois explained. "You see, because of this, only you can enter this alternate dimension..."

Kaera Stones kept her eyes fixed on the ground and her hands clasped behind her back. She had heard this all before, throughout her entire childhood. It was nothing new.

So she could allow her mind to wander. She peeked through her eyelashes at her new companions, using a technique that she had perfected over the years. There was the quiet, shy girl with red hair and narrow eyes. Kaera had liked her immediately. She struck her as disciplined and obedient, a kindred spirit. Not at all like the tiny girl with purple streaks in her hair, who had stood up to the commander. She didn't like her, or expect her to last long. The brown-haired boy, on the other hand...he had leadership potential. She would gladly follow him into battle.

He was speaking right now. "So if this thing's so dangerous, why don't you just...I don't know...turn the computer off?"  
"You are aware that most of Europe and parts of Asia and Africa no longer run on fossil fuels?" the commander responded.

"Yeah. Solar power or something, right?"

"No. Actually, we've been using the excess power thrown off by Lyoko. In another ten years, it will support the entire planet."

"Oh," Skyler said. He thought about it. _"Oh."_

"Do you understand now?" the commander continued.

"Yes, but we don't believe," Jessie, the small, loud one, said. Kaera allowed herself an inner smile. That would soon be remedied.

Commander Dubois ignored the comment. "You will live in the compound for the foreseeable future. We run a six-to-ten schedule-rather lax, because you're children. You are to remain in your rooms unless participating in academics, combat training, or combat. You will enter Lyoko for the first time in three days, after you have had time to adjust to your schedules.

"My name is Madeleine Dubois. You will address me as 'ma'am' or 'commander.' I want you to realize right now that I am not your mother, so don't expect me to act like it. Now, allow me to introduce you to the other members of your team." She waved Dr. Svensen, with his goatee and unfortunate stutter, forward. "This is Dr. Erik Svensen. He is Europe's leading expert on computer science, and he will be your lifeline on Lyoko. Your safe arrival and return will be up to him."

Dr. Svensen nodded and smiled, stepping back without saying a thing. Kaera knew that it was her turn next. She raised her head and walked forward, aware of her pounding heart. How was it that she could face her combat instructor every day but these three civilian kids made her want to turn around and run?

"And this is Kaera Stones. She is the most important out of all of you. Do not allow her to be injured, do not lose track of her, and protect her with your life. If she dies, you die. We _all_ die. Get it?"

She just stared ahead and hoped that her face didn't look as hot as it felt.

"She'll show you to your quarters." With that, the commander turned and walked out of the room, taking Dr. Svensen with her. Kaera was left in the center of the room. Six eyes were on her-two curious, two afraid, and two hostile.

She took a deep breath. "Follow me."

Did her voice have to sound so high-pitched?

Without checking to see if they were obeying, she wheeled around and strode through the door. They didn't like her. No, they probably hated her, thanks to what Commander Dubois had said. They thought that she had an overinflated opinion of herself. They thought that she was already the favored one. They would not want to fight beside her, but they were supposed to be a unit, a squadron, a-

"Hey. Kara." She glanced in the direction of the voice and saw Jessie walking beside her, keeping pace surprisingly well. With a flash of annoyance, she also saw that the other girl was taller than her. "Is this Lyoko thing for real?"

"Yes, it's for real." Kaera thought about correcting her pronunciation of her name, but didn't.

"You ever been there?"

"Not yet."

"So how do you know it's real?"

She glanced at Jessie. "Why would they lie?"

"Why wouldn't they?"

The blond's gaze was making her uncomfortable, so she broke eye contact. A passing soldier nodded to her in greeting.

"How long have you been here?" Jessie asked.

"Most of my life," Kaera replied stiffly.

"Whoa! Seriously?"

"Yes."

Neither of them talked for a couple seconds. She thought that maybe she was expected to elaborate, but she wasn't going to. Her life story was not one of the few things that she was willing to share with this irritating girl.

"Am I making you uncomfortable?" Jessie asked suddenly. Kaera mentally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Very."

"Oh. Sorry. I was homeschooled, you know."

"Mm."

"I bet you were, too, huh?"

"In a sense."

Another silence. Kaera would have gladly traded any one of her limbs in exchange for the end of this conversation.

"You're not much of a talker, are you?"

"Actually, I think the problem is that you-talk too much," she replied, her heartrate skyrocketing again with such a bold statement.

Jessie just grinned. "So, can you kill a man with your bare hands?"

"No." That was just ridiculous.

"You've lived on a top-secret military base your whole life and you can't even kill someone?"

"That's your room," Kaera changed the subject, relieved as the dormitory doors came into view. She pointed at one. "We have the rest of the day off. I'll see you at six-thirty tomorrow morning."

"Hey, wait." Jessie grabbed her shoulder, seemingly oblivious to the way that she stiffened in response. "What are we supposed to do?"

"Stay in your room and be quiet," she told her as Aurora and Skyler came around the corner. "And leave me alone."

Kaera shook the hand off of her shoulder and reached for the door to her own room. But suddenly, an ear-splitting alarm blared and red lights began to flash.

"Oh my god," she breathed. "No...another month, we were supposed to have another month...!"

But that didn't matter now. She turned to the others. "Come on, we have to go."

"Why? What's going on?" Jessie yelled over the sound of the alarms. "Are we under attack?!"

"Yes!" Kaera was already sprinting down the hall, towards the elevator that could take her to the rooms that held Lyoko's connections to this world. "X.A.N.A. just broke out."


	5. Chapter 5

**Once again, The Thirteenth Hero (Lasthero13 on deviantART) wrote this, not me. I simply posted it here at her request.**

-*!*-

"That's the AI that we're supposed to be fighting?" Jessie asked, running beside Kaera. Aurora could barely hear her over the alarms.

The green-haired girl just nodded. She was incredibly fast, for someone so short. Aurora was nearly a head taller than her and yet couldn't keep up. She had never been athletic, and besides, it was hard to run in this armor. Even with what felt like several gallons of adrenalin in her veins.

She couldn't remember ever being this scared. She had been torn away from the only home she had ever known, she had no idea what was going on, and she was surrounded by complete strangers. The whole thing hadn't really sunk in yet. It still felt like a dream, a strange and graphic nightmare. Even her terror was primal and nearly senseless, like something felt in the middle of the night while still half-asleep.

Which was why Aurora slowed, and finally stopped.

"What are you doing?" Skyler yelled, skidding to a halt beside her. Ignoring him, she raised her hand, examining the way that the flashing lights played off of her gauntlet.

"Doesn't this feel...weird at all to you?" she murmured.

"Jessie and Kaera are getting away," he replied. "If we lose them, we'll never find our way out of here."

"We might not anyway," she said in Japanese. Leaving him, she wandered down another hallway, squinting against the emergency lights.

_What on Earth is going on here?_ she asked herself. _Maybe I'm sick...maybe this is a fever dream. I should try and remember this when I wake up, it'd make a fantastic movie._

Aurora leaned against a wall and slid into a sitting position. Taking off her gauntlets, she cradled her head in her hands and wished that they weren't hers, so that they would actually be cool against her hot face. Yes, this was most definitely a fever dream.

_I want to wake up._

"So this is what they send to fight me?" someone very near her muttered. Her head jerked up. That voice couldn't be natural-it sounded electronic, mechanized, scrambled. And yet there were two soldiers, both male and helmetless, standing above her. Had they spoken?

"I'm sorry?" she asked in French, forcing herself to yell to be heard over the alarms.

Suddenly, the blaring stopped, leaving silence in its place. The soldiers stared at her without expression. Then they spoke in unison, using that same, creepy voice.

"You look a lot like your mother," they said. "But I doubt you can fight like her."

_My mother...?_

"I know I'm supposed to be with the others," she said, standing up warily. She had no idea what was going on, but all of her instincts were screaming like the now-silent alarms. "But I didn't feel well."

The soldiers didn't respond. They just raised their guns and fired.

Aurora screamed and dropped into a crouch, instinctively covering her head as bullets peppered the wall behind her. Abruptly, they came to a stop. She peeked upwards to see the soldiers examining their weapons.

_Those are railguns. I can't dodge. They must have aimed over my head on purpose._

She couldn't run. They'd just shoot her in the back, and while her armor might be bulletproof, she really didn't feel like testing it right now. She couldn't fight. There was no doubt that they were stronger than her, and besides, they had guns. And she didn't think that there was really an opportunity to outsmart them here. So what was left? The element of surprise?

Evidently, because the soldier on the right never saw it coming when she shot to her feet, snatched his gun out of his hands, and hit him on the side of the head with it.

Still clutching the gun, she turned and bolted. She was counting on them being distracted, and it seemed to work, because no bullets slammed into her as she lunged for the nearest escape route. A pair of double doors. Fall through them, kick them closed, shove the gun through the handles. Run.

Aurora found herself in some sort of mess hall, illuminated only by the light coming through the tiny windows in the doors. The tables were visible. But the black chairs weren't. Her shins collided with one, and she tripped, sprawling across the floor. A dull pain in her mouth, as well as the taste of blood, alerted her to the fact that she had bitten her tongue pretty badly. She swore in Japanese, having difficulty forming the syllables.

The door banged alarmingly, like someone was kicking it. She glanced around in fear. They'd be in here in a minute. There was no time to make it into the kitchen, or through another door. Instead, she just crawled under the nearest table, pulling the chairs in around her and drawing her legs to her chest.

She pressed her face against the armor on her knees, shaking silently.

_Is this why they brought us here? To kill us one by one?_

No. Of course not. This is only a dream.

Then why am I afraid of dying?"

BANG!/i The doors flew open violently as the gun snapped in half. Aurora hugged her legs tighter as debris clattered over the floor, holding in a terrified scream. She heard boots snapping in perfect unison over the floor, gauntletted fingers clicking along the length of a weapon (which reminded her of her own bare hands), and a weird crackling noise. She was tempted to look. But instead, she just kept her eyes closed, mouthing prayers that weren't really directed towards anything.

_Keep me safe...don't let them kill me...keep me safe..._

Aunt Kana's face flashed into her mind, along with a stab of anger. How would she feel when her niece's mutilated body was discovered?

_CRACK!_ A loud noise, like lightning striking right next to her, resounded through the mess hall. The scents of burning wood and ozone reached her, as well as the noises of multiple somethings bouncing off of the top of her table. Aurora would have screamed. But her teeth seemed to be locked together, her blood seemed to be frozen.

The soldiers waited a couple of seconds in which several universes expanded, fostered life, and collapsed-or so it seemed. Finally, they left, once again walking in unison, clicking their way out of the room. She forced herself to count to two hundred before finally crawling out from underneath the table. Shaking violently, she slowly stood up.

The table right next to the one that she had been hiding underneath looked like it had exploded. She felt suddenly too weak to stand, and dropped into a chair. That could have been her, scattered on the floor in charred pieces. The beating of her heart suddenly seemed to fragile. So easy to halt.

If Aurora could just make it out of here alive, then she could get to the town. There had to be people who would help her there. The police might be working with the soldiers, but the civilians would defend her, or at least hide her, wouldn't they? It didn't matter. They were her only hope for survival at the moment.

_Survival? This isn't even real,_ she reminded herself. But even her mental voice was weak with terror, holding back tears.

Yes, this whole thing might just be an elaborate nightmare. But it seemed that the only way to find out was to bring the frantic thudding in her chest to a stop.

_Heartbeat. Heart. Beat. Can you feel a pulse in a dream?_

Maybe. Maybe...

...no.


End file.
